Sunday, May 17, 2020

Writers’ Pantry #20: A Name by Any Other Name Can Be… Confusing

Every now and again, life gets extra busy and living happens faster than I can keep up. When that happens, my reading of the poetry and prose you contribute to our prompts take a while. Still, I get there eventually… except, when I don’t know who you are. I understand this might sound a bit silly. I mean, if someone leaves a working link everyone should be able to get to it, right? Sure. But since I have to prioritize my time, I start by commenting on the posts of writers who have done me the courtesy of commenting on my post. When I have time left, I read the rest.

Sometimes, particularly in the case of new contributors whose usernames and blog names don’t match, I can’t tell who is who. This becomes a bigger problem when the links said contributors attach to their comments don’t lead to their blogs or websites, or include an email address. The good news is that this problem is easily solved. The same goes for the issue that plagues those of us who can’t get to your contributions as fast as we might want. What issue is this? you might be wondering. Well, I’m referring to the habit of not adding direct links. When the link you feed Mr. Linky doesn’t lead to the specific post you wrote for the prompt, anyone visiting a few days after the prompt might have a hard time finding your contribution, especially if you are a prolific blogger. But again, these complications are easily avoided, if the following steps are taken:

1. If your username and your blog name don’t match, include both in the text of your link or in the username you comment with. Examples: Joel (@Stranded Tree) and Colleen LOOSELEAF. Joel tends to add only his blog name to Mr. Linky, but he uses both when commenting. Colleen’s comments show her name alone, but she adds both to Mr. Linky. I can always get back to them.

2. Please add the direct link to your post, especially for the Weekly Scribblings. I know just adding a link to your blog is easier, but not many people will (or can) take the time to go through all your posts in order to find the one you meant for the prompt.

3. This one is an oldie, but… why not, right? Most writers who share their work want to know what others think of their words. So, please, try to find the time to comment on other people’s contributions, particularly when they have already done you the honor.
  

And now, our usual Announcements and Reminders:     

- in her latest Wild Fridays: I Wish I’d Written This, Rosemary shares “Show Me an Old Rebel” and invites everyone to join her in a discussion of the poem and some histories.

- for our next Weekly Scribblings, Sanaa let’s us know that it is “Undoubtedly Rossetti”, and then challenges everyone to write while inspired by the works of Rossetti—meaning poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti or paintings by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

- last, but not even a tiny bit least, I am beyond pleased to inform anyone, who isn’t already squealing about it (squeal!), that Riders of the Tempest: The Story of WE by H. Hennenburg can currently be downloaded free at Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo.

Add the direct link to your contribution to Mr. Linky. One entry per participant, please. If you choose to delight and enrich us with prose, let the word count be 369 words or fewer. As always, visit other writers, experience their words, tell them what they make you feel.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53409679-riders-of-the-tempest
“Gripped by a deep yearning, we march into a tempest…”

31 comments:

  1. It's early morning here. The sun is shining, I'm surrounded by greenery, everything is peaceful, and the scent of honeysuckle is overwhelming. I hope that, wherever you are, you're having, or have had, a similar sort of morning.

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    1. We had a very pleasant morning in this part of Australia, too – also sunny, and with plenty of greenery. (Our trees don't lose their leaves in autumn.) But it's already dark now and I'll be turning the heater on in a minute. Cosy nights are nice too.

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    2. It's morning here now, and the weather and mood of New York is currently mirroring your bit of the world. The sun is out, birds are singing, and my hot and sweet coffee and I are ready for a good day. Thanks so much for the wishes, Kim.

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  2. Hi, Magaly, thanks for being so on the ball with the things we need to know and remember. Many of us do know how it all works, but it's good to have an update now and then for new people – and because even we old hands can forget sometimes.
    (I remember when I was new to blogging – quite a few years ago now – it took me ages to work out that in order to get the url for the specific post and not the blog as a whole, I had to click on the title of that post rather than the Home page which, to a cursory glance, appeared identical.)
    Thanks, too, for telling us about Heather's book. Congratulations, Heather!!!

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    1. Beginnings are always a bit tricky for us all, I think.

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  3. A greeting to all poets and storytellers, I'm just passing by. :) Thank you Maga for this great advice on blogging etiquette, and importantly for sharing the good news of H's publication. I ran squealling to get my copy.

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  4. I snagged my copy of H's piece as soon as I saw it on social media. It's going to pair well with my mid-morning tea.

    I find my time is even more at a premium because of the quarantine because of work and family. But I absolutely will return visits to my page. It's just easier if I have the correct link to know where to visit. :)

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    1. Correct links do add a level of ease to the process.

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  5. Magaly, I will include "Joel (@Stranded Tree)" on my links from now on. It makes better sense since I also include a sister-site (for more personal and non-farm related writings.)
    This was a good reminder as I try to reply to every comment on my site and it took me a while to connect names to bloggers. I appreciate the visitors that read my meager ramblings and I try to get to everyone I can, although I'm late, especially this time of year.

    After discovering Poets United, I've felt welcomed by you all. Thank you and Cheers!

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    1. Thank you so much for reading, Joel, and for being so good at making the process easier for all of us. I hope things are growing well in the farm!

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    2. Thank you for asking, Magaly. The corn is up along with the weeds since we don't use herbicides. We also had a fair start for our tree planting. Even with unexpected repairs this is much better than last year (so far).
      We hope for a good year for once. Ha!

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  6. Good day, everyone. Still sitting out the lockdown here. Stay safe!
    Hi H. Hennenburg, congrats on your book! :)

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    1. You are not alone. Well, we all sort of are in a way, but you know what I mean--we, too, are staying home (and hoping for the best). 😁

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  7. Thanks for sharing the book and keep us on our toes about clarity on our posts. I have so many blogs people wouldn't know who the heck I was if I posted without using my name.

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  8. Congrats to H. Hennenburg.
    Happy Sunday everyone

    Much💜love

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  9. Hi Everyone! Making my out from under a rock--between the pandemic, and loss of income, and NaPo--sorry for my absence!

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    1. Welcome back, Audrey. I hope life is getting a little better.

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  10. I like to go all e.e. cummings when I'm doing poetry, so I tend to just write "cie" and leave the direct link to my post. It never occurred to me that it might be confusing when my Blogger handle is "The Ornery Old Lady." Although anyone who gets to know me a little quickly sees that the two are one and the same! ;-)

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    1. I think things are rarely confusing for regulars--those of us who have been around for a while can recognize each other easily. Still, when someone has several blogs (aka you and Susie, lol) having the username and blog name in the added link helps.

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    2. P.S. It's good to see you, cie. ;-)

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  11. Hmmm, old hand as I may be, perhaps I don't know well enough how things work! I never realised that people wanting to find a post of mine again would not do what I always do – which is to come back to the particular P&SU feature and find the link I want in Mr Linky again. Doing that, I personally never get confused about which blog is whose.

    When I comment on people's posts and am asked to supply website, I put www.nissen-wade.com which is the url of a blog I have designed as my official website. It has links to my 13 blogs-that-are-blogs, 5 of which are poetry blogs. Enheduanna's Daughter is my current main poetry/storytelling blog and most often the one I link to here – but not always. (If I'm leaving a comment on a Wordpress blog, it will sometimes automatically put my gravatar url and I don't change it because I think it does the same: leading to the list of my blogs.)

    For the Mr Linky link, I have been using my whole name, and linking to the particular post at the particular blog for the piece of writing I'm sharing. ‘Rosemary Nissen-Wade’ does appear prominently on any blog I might link to here, either as sub-title of the blog or at the top of the Home page.

    (To further complicate matters, my email address is not simply my name either, but just my first name plus an old business name I used to have. I never changed it as so many people already knew it as my email address.)

    I was puzzled a little while back when one reader said she had trouble finding my post. She was confused by being directed to my website, from the information I left on a comment at her blog – and also because I wasn't posting on that occasion at my usual poetry blog but one of the others, so she thought that the Mr Linky link must have been wrong (which it wasn’t) and then that the website was another misdirection.

    I can see that it could be useful to put both my name and the blog name on Mr Linky, but I hope I need not change the url on my comments to whichever blog I'm using at the time. My website is called Rosemary Nissen-Wade and right at the top, clearly visible, is a menu link to 'My Poetry Blogs'.

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    1. I think your posts are easily found, since you always add the direct link to Mr. Linky and you sign all your blogs with the name you use to leave comments. One might have to come back to the original prompt to reply--that's what I and most of us do, I think. The problem arises when the username and link people leave on comments lead to an empty profile. This is especially true for people who blog on WordPress or other sites and have to create a Blogger profile--many don't add a link to their blogs to said profile. And again, when the name they used to comment and the name they leave on Mr. Linky doesn't match, the break comes. Take this as an example, for the longest time, I wasn't sure who Jenna was. I suspected that she blogged at Revived Writer, but I couldn't be completely sure. When I searched the blog for the name Jenna I couldn't find it there. Then, when I followed the link she leaves on comments she made on my blog, the link would take me to a Blogger profile that offered no connection to Revived Writer.

      If everyone followed the same pattern things would be very clear. But we are people, and people will do things differently. So, the only thing we do have is offering some sort of connection between username and blog name, which will lead us directly to a post or will guide us there if we come back to the prompt.

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    2. Things would be made dramatically easier if every username link would lead to a full profile, which includes the participants blog. But even that isn't a perfect system, if the person doesn't leave a direct link. For as our beloved Susie pointed out above, some writers have a collection of blogs (e.i. you and cie). If you failed to provide the direct link, a reader would have to go through over 10 blogs before they could find the one with your post. And after they got there, they would have to search for the specific entry too.

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    3. Thanks for elaborating! There was a time when the user name connected to my Wordpress gravatar was SnakyPoet – the name of my very first and for a long time my only blog (which still exists), my twitter handle (long ago when I was on twitter) and now my Instagram name. But at some point I decided to change my gravatar name to Rosemary Nissen-Wade, for the very reason that I thought SnakyPoet might be confusing nowadays. (On Instagram, and on the SP blog itself, my own name is visibly connected to it, but gravatar doesn't allow for that to be immediately obvious.)

      Another thing I think important is always to put a note on a post I'm sharing, as to which prompt I'm linking it to – even if I am linking a really old piece to the Pantry, as I sometimes do.

      So it seems I'm doing all that's needful. That's good!

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    4. I agree, adding the link is supper important. That way even if the names don't match, those who might want to take the chance can find the post a bit easier.

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